We are a group of educators, students, and parents seeking a democratic society. We are concerned with questions like: How can we teach against racism, nationalism and sexism in an increasingly authoritarian and undemocratic society? How can we gain enough real power to keep our ideals AND teach? Whose interests do schools serve in a society that is ever more unequal? We want to learn about equality, democracy and social justice as we simultaneously struggle to bring those into practice.

In mid- 2001, we wrote, “This is the seiche time...From time to time in the St. Clair River, which runs rapidly along the eastern coast of Michigan connecting Lake Huron with Lake St. Clair, a combination of high winds and atmospheric pressure causes the river to split apart, leaving a wet marsh between an onrushing tide of water headed south, and a trailing wave of great power. The locals call this a seiche, and the long moments that pass as the broken water surges to connect with itself, usually accompanied by dark purple skies, they call the seiche time.”September 11, 2001 followed.Four years earlier, we argued that schools were even then the centripetal organizing point of de-industrialized North American life (and elsewhere too), that the struggles in schools would mesh ideology and money; sometimes colliding, other times in a perfect marriage.

We said any society engaged in militarism, imperialism, tied to a consumer economy, would surely move to greater control over what citizens know and how they come to know it. Schools would be key.

In schools, we said that six thrusts from elites would come into play:1. Regimented national curricula (we used the history standards as a model).2. Anti-working class, racist, high-stakes tests.3. Merit pay linked to the tests.4. More militarism.5. Some privatization.6. A full blown assault on educators’ wages and benefits.

We argued that the traditional unions and professional organizations would be worse than useless in meeting these attacks as their leaders are flatly on the other side of what is a class(room) war.

We said “an injury to one will proceed an injury to all.” It has, as we indicated, urban districts serving especially exploited populations and rural districts would be hit first, but middle class districts would follow–then even some of the richer public schools would be hit.

We insisted for nine years that a consumer society that has a vanishing productive base, a society rooted in spectacles, massive internal and external borrowing, and financial shenanigans was built on sand–and that the sky would fall.

It did.

For a decade, we built school resistance around, mostly, research and action aimed at the high-stakes exams with some success in both wealthy and poor districts while most middle class district school workers muddled along.

In early 2008, we expressed sympathy for those who would vote Democratic, but suggested that relying on Democrats to make fundamental change demonstrated a key misunderstanding of the relationship of capitalism and democracy, the former then trumping democracy at every turn.

We insisted that “capitalism has to be named.” We said, “The core issue of our time is the rapid rise of color-coded social and economic inequality and the promise of perpetual war, challenged by the potential of mass, class-conscious, resistance.”

Over more than a decade, our conferences and our resources became community and comfort to educators who often felt isolated in this onslaught. We claim no special foresight. What is most surprising to us is that in North America the Rouge Forum stands alone as an organized group of people who recognize that what is afoot is an education agenda as a war agenda, a class war agenda, and who seek to construct reason, connected to power, in order to not only push back, but transform our own lives and our society.

The Rouge Forum transcends the divisions of academic and social labor, rather than recreating them as do unions and the “professional” organizations. We include doctors, professors, k12 educators, support personnel, social workers, media specialists, librarians, parents, two principals, truck drivers, custodians, secretaries, retirees, stadium workers, construction workers, unemployed people, soldiers, union staffers, that is, people from all over world, the US to India to England to Grenada to South Africa.

The Rouge Forum News, our Broadsides, videos, and other publications reflect that unity–and our varying critiques of why things are as they are. We close a horrific decade begun and ended with war heaped upon war—battles where the children of the poor kill other children of the poor on behalf of the rich in their homelands. We witnessed the greatest theft of wealth in the history of the world, the $12.9 trillion Tarp bank bailout (no strings) and the takeover of the auto industry by the federal government, finalizing what can only be seen as a corporate state.

On the near horizon, we suspect the Democrats will tax the existing health insurance of those who have jobs, dump GM, Chrysler, and Walmart employees into a debased pool of the barely insured, and let the rich off the hook once again.

What is ahead? Surely more wars, intensifying as imperial rivalries grow. China, Russia, Japan, and Europe all desperately need that oil, that cheap labor, that copper, those markets, the pipelines, and those shipping lanes. The wars will come home in the economy and daily life. Our crystal ball isn’t clear enough to predict deflation, inflation, or devaluation, but the throw of the dice says rampant inflation. In daily life, the assaults on reason and well being in schools will necessarily sharpen as will political repression, often disguised as protection of the citizenry. If resistance is not successful, all educators could become traveling adjuncts.

We have said persistently that people will fight back as they will have no choice but to fight back—and people will pull back when they see no alternative but to retreat. Will we make good sense of why we must fight? Will the fight be the isolating call of, “Save My Job!” and lose, or will it be, “When They Say Cut Back, We Say Fight Back!” and win?

Resistance is rising as the recent battles in California universities show. However, it remains that retreat is workers’ main move now–as the debacle of the Detroit Federation of Teacher contract ($500 per month pay cut, massive health care cuts, merit pay, teachers disciplining teachers–all as the DFT leadership hugged the employer; teachers ratified at 60% as they were isolated from one another, saw no option).

Justice demands organization. If we are to overcome what can now be reasonably described as the emergence of fascism as a mass, popular, world-wide movement, the Rouge Forum needs to grow. We need your ideas, suggestions, comments, and criticism. You can post here at the blog or write any member of the Rouge Forum Steering Committee.

We hope you will spread the word, urge others to join our community, so the next decade will not end with the darkness this one has.

13 December 2009

In its more than decade of existence, the Rouge Forum has attempted to contribute to the conversation on social justice within national organizations, in union halls, in K-12 schools, in colleges/universities, at work places, and in community organizations. It has attempted to bring a reasoned analysis to contemporary issues using an historical lens, a sense of the total, and, often, pedagogical strategies. It has produced an appreciable amount of scholarship among its members—sometimes award winning scholarship—and has among its membership winners of academic freedom awards.

Undoubtedly, the Rouge Forum has become a relevant voice for social justice, particularly related to education. We hope to amplify that voice and continue to develop its relevance in the days to come. Recent events, tethered to their historical predecessors, indicate there is little time to dither.

One of the best things about the Rouge Forum, particularly those who have been able to take part in conferences and joint actions, is the sense of community. My partner and I remarked a few years ago at the conference in Detroit that we felt like we were home. We were among comrades who, while we didn’t agree on everything, seemed to have a congruent idea that things need to change and a relatively common idea of what that might look like. We could at least outline the picture.

Times together, such as these, assure us we are not crazy—that another world is not only necessary, but possible. Our work is continuing to figure out how we support one another, how we can have a voice in our particular locations, and how we craft and apply a vision of what is more just, more human, and right. Community. Voice. Vision. Connect reason to power, as Rich would say. Go.

And in that go-ing, we need sustenance for the journey—sustenance in the form of community and consciousness (ever-deepening, ever-evolving), but also hope. The hope I/we suggest is not naïve hope. It is hope grounded in struggle, connected to others. It is hope that is participatory. It becomes the essence of who we are. It is a politics of prefiguration that suggests if we want democracy and we want justice, then our actions, to the extent possible, will need to bear these out. It is to understand the journey/struggle not as precise, but as punctuations of imperfections, of hypocrisies that bring us back to the start, such that we can begin again.

This idea of the politics of prefiguration is espoused by a thoughtful theorist on hope: Rebecca Solnit. Her text, Hope in the Dark, pushed me to find hope in the struggle—in fact, catapulting me into that struggle. Solnit has enlivened that sense again in her recent essay in TomDispatch: http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175168/tomgram:__rebecca_solnit,_writing_history_in_the_streets/, entitled Learning how to Count to 350. Re-citing a history of action in the streets and reasons to hope (in the face of all the reasons to despair), Solnit suggests, "To survive the coming era, we need to re-imagine what constitutes wealth and well-being and what constitutes poverty." Considering the dismal performance of communism in the 20th century (often more totalitarian and capitalist than liberatory) and the fact that global capitalism was brought to its knees last year, she suggests we've got work to do to (re)imagine the world.

And, we—that is, people of conscience—must occupy that void. Else, something else will. The steel-toed rhythm can be heard goose-stepping just inside the ear's horizon. I submit we'll need to step into that space sooner than later.

I'll see you at the barricades.

We'll have to resist what is more than likely coming next—find a voice, speak truth to power, take to the streets, take over a building. Escalate. Extending Rich’s metaphor from earlier work, we lambs look good to the wolves who regroup in the penthouses of their nearby woods (whose fuel is nearly spent) and in the corporate board rooms overlooking ever-drying creeks (more parts pollution than potable). They're finished buying what we have, as how much more cheaply can our labor power be had? Now, they plan to just take it (see: http://cohort11.americanobserver.net/latoyaegwuekwe/multimediafinal.html).

And, they will use a god to convince you they are right. They will call on him, attempting to scheme us into doing the same (a little deposit of flesh now, and your children's flesh, for an eternity of made-up bed time stories, "Now I Iay me down to sleep....").

I'll keep my soul, whatever is left of it, thank you very much.

I'm looking, instead, for what Solnit calls a moment of creation—moments for which democracy, social justice, creativity, freedom, take one step forward.

Solnit is good at flipping the script, looking at the underside of the paper and seeing the scribbling of possibility. What she submits is an alternative read to the corporate media prophets (or is that profits?). We would do well to listen. Hers is not a naïve re-rendering or postmodern apologetics. My take is that Solnit’s proposition is grounded in the real. The alteration takes into account the work that is being done, often diminished by our popular discourse and corporate media. This alternative understanding helps us realize that others are struggling, voices are shouting, a history of resistance leads us to this moment of possibility.

Revolutionary praxis remains our guide: the simultaneity and dialectic of self change and the changing of society.

We should understand what it's going to take for that moment of creation. Those moments: when we realize the politics of divide and conquer have gotten the best of us (color/class/gender/sexuality-coded inequalities); when we realize that we that we are killing others (bought and paid for bombs with our signature on them), killing babies, mothers, difference with our own babies barely able to know differently in capital's schools (the militarization of schools); when we realize that our knowledge has been regulated by corporate interests to keep us docile and ignorant (high-stakes testing) in order to prepare us for jobs we will more than likely hate (alienation) so we will seek pleasure in (fetishize) commodities, that is, things, and our social relations will be mediated by reality TV and video games.

When we recognize these issues as material reality, a moment will emerge. A moment (consciousness grounded in the real) that must lead to another moment (courage to change) in which we will need to figure out how to live differently (protest, resistance, occupation, freedom schools, sustainable living, new solidarities). Moments in which we own our labor power: the free development of each creates the conditions for the free development of all, since we will all recognize our interdependence and the strength of our difference.

More than likely, these moments will blur--because the barricades will not only be in the streets, but they will be in our work places, in our schools, in our churches, in our homes, in our community centers. Consciousness will merge with courage will merge with consciousness will merge with a more materialist understanding of reality, which will lead to how we can re-imagine wealth, well-being and poverty in the coming era.

We must. The wolves are hungry.

But, the lambs are plentiful. And, we will realize that we far outnumber the wolves when conscious because we will see and do differently.

When we see differently, we won't be divided so easily. When we see differently, we won't abide by mystical explanations of injustice; we will see it for what it is. When we see differently, we’ll stop looking at the deadness of the center and instead explore the possibility at the periphery. When we see differently we won't believe the mythology of national holidays intended to white-wash history and to, more importantly, mark the beginning of a new holiday season of debt and guilt built by the capitalists. Just look on the rez. How did Thanksgiving work out for those who welcomed the newcomers? Can we call it what it is, please: a celebration of genocide. And, we are still killing them (see the December, 2009, Harper’s Magazine article about life on the modern reservation). Christmas could use an RF News issue all its own…

When we see differently, we will note the possibility of solidarity born in moments of creation where we understand richness as fullness (of life and community), in the bread broken amidst laughter AND tears, in the totality discovered, in one more sunrise.

07 December 2009

Check the link above but note that Detroit may be the next centerpiece for education struggles soon. The Detroit Federation of Teachers bosses signed a tentative agreement (TA) with the Broad Foundation’s Detroit Financial Manager, Bob Bobb who now runs the system, that offers DPS $500 a month from each teacher’s check, or $10,000 a year, to be paid back as a no-interest loan when the teacher quits the system. With about 7000 school workers in DPS (not all classroom teachers), paying the dun for 2 1/2 years of the 3 year contract, that’s a $105 million no-interest loan to a school system that claimed it needed about $40 million in concessions from the school workers. More, DPS claims its on the brink of bankruptcy, which would likely dissolve the debt to educators.

The contract language is murky on what looks like a union bracero program, selling the labor of members to DPS with a specious promise of repayment on the “loan,” (blackmail for a job).

The TA is here: http://mi.aft.org/dft231/ although in the past members have complained about not being told of the full measure of TA’s.In a meeting of about 2500 of the DFT members at Cobo Hall on Sunday, most rank and filers agreed that 90% plus rose to oppose the TA that was bargained behind their backs, involving the top national leadership of the AFT, like President Randi Weingarten.

No group of organized educators has been on strike in the last decade more than DFT rank and filers who led a huge wildcat strike, against their union, against the law, and against the employer–and they made gains.But today the DFT is relatively isolated. The union leadership stayed silent in the face of massive corruption and incompetence that infected nearly every aspect of Detroit school life. Citizens turned against the system as a whole.

When Broad’s Bobb arrived, citizens applauded as he rooted out the more obvious small time crooks in the system, but he left aside the contractors who looted the public by stealing millions in no-bid contract during the five year period of the Takeover Board, when the governor wiped out the elected board and replaced them with, mostly, suburban auto execs from the failing Big Three. The Takeover Board left DPS at least $40 million in debt.

Now, there are at least 10 newly built schools that sit empty and stripped of everything of value, schools that were built in the Takeover period–in a system that loses 12,000 students a year.

Bobb “won” a new $500 million bond issue to build more new schools by a 2/3 majority this fall, indicating his newly won clout, and his ability to syphon off more money from a system that claims it will build new schools, but demands blackmail payments from teachers. Bobb has already pulled out millions on no-bid offers to cronies in Broad related companies.

The DFT’s sellout Tentative Agreement will appear in urban bargaining tables everywhere next year, if DPS gets away with this. An injury to one really will go before an injury to all.Every expression of solidarity in opposition to this TA will matter. More, suburban MEA members need to unite with the DFT rank and file, join with parents and kids to create enough educational civil strife that drives the DFT bosses back to the bargaining table, forces them to report out a TA that makes gains, not concessions.

No union is ideologically or structurally prepared to take on the battles ahead–why we formed the Rouge Forum a decade ago.

30 November 2009

The MORAL LAW causes the people to be in complete accord with their ruler, so that they will follow him regardless of their lives, undismayed by any danger. Sun Tzu

Dear Friends,

There have been at least 16 occupations seeking to rescue education from the ruling classes in California this month, and more to come. UC Irvine next. Germany, Austria, and France also witnessed fight-backs coming from united students and workers.

To date, the only organized school voice in the US that recognizes the current crises as class war is the Rouge Forum–which may speak well for us, or not so well for others who, so far, hold onto wisps of unfounded hope made up of the shreds of democracy and citizenship in the USA.

The direct action occupations and the defenders outside the buildings up the ante for thought and action in schools and in the streets, demonstrating the violence behind capitalist democracy; overcoming the alienated notion that people other than us will save us.

On the Education Agenda is a Class War Agenda Front: Video: UC Berkeley Occupation and Cop Attack: “This university has no moral legitimacy at all…just violence.” And segment of comment from Susan Harman on the scene, “students we talked to who’d been inside said they broke hands and noses and clubbed people, and that they could hear the crackling of tasers.” http://www.ktvu.com/news/21674608/detail.html

UC Students Statement on the Necrophilia of University Life: “Being president of the University of California is like being manager of a cemetery: there are many people under you, but no one is listening.”UC President Mark Yudof; “Capital is dead labor which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labor.” Karl Marx http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/11/25/18630552.php

Peter Phillips of Project Censored: Higher Ed Cuts Serve the Rich: “The students who are protesting tuition increases know they are being ripped off. They know that we are bailing out the rich with hundreds of billions dollars for Wall Street and massive budget cuts for the rest of us. The corporate media doesn’t explain to over-taxed working families how they are paying more while the rich sock it away.”http://dailycensored.com/2009/11/22/the-higher-education-fiscal-crisis-protects-the-wealthy/

Ohanian on the Dem/Repub Alliance to Deny Education to the Public: “no group was a stronger supporter of NCLB than the Democratic Leadership Council. Take a look at this page. Click on a few of the articles–if you have the stomach for it.” http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=614

Detroit’s DFT May Soon Report Out the Worst Big City School Worker Contract in History Including Massive Pay and Benefit Cuts, Layoffs, Merit Pay, and a “Covenant” With the Broad Foundation. Here is a short photo tour of some of the 69 closed and stripped Detroit Public Schools. http://richgibson.shutterfly.com/26

The Falling Sky and Endless War Fronts: Yes, of Course the Sky is Falling: 15 Signs of American Ruin: “The economic elite have launched an attack on the U.S. public and society is unraveling at an increased rate. You may have missed it in the mainstream news media, but statistical societal indicators are reading red across the board. Let’s look at the top 15 statistics that prove we are under attack.” http://www.alternet.org/workplace/144109V

Demagogue To Send 34,000 More Troops to AFPAK: “Obama met Monday evening with his national security team to finalize a plan to dispatch some 34,000 additional U.S. troops over the next year to what he’s called “a war of necessity” in Afghanistan, U.S. officials told McClatchy. Obama is expected to announce his long-awaited decision on Dec. 1, followed by meetings on Capitol Hill aimed at winning congressional support amid opposition by some Democrats who are worried about the strain on the U.S. Treasury and whether Afghanistan has become a quagmire, the officials said. http://www.mcclatchydc.com/336/story/79380.html

Blair Warned Invasion Illegal: “Mr Blair refused to accept Lord Goldsmith’s advice and instead issued instructions for his long-term friend to be “gagged” and barred from cabinet meetings, the newspaper claimed. Lord Goldsmith apparently lost three stone, and complained he was “more or less pinned to the wall” in a No 10 showdown with two of Mr Blair’s most loyal aides, Lord Falconer and Baroness Morgan. Mr Blair also allegedly failed to inform the Cabinet of the warning, fearing an “anti-war revolt”. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/iraq-the-uwaru-was-illegal-1830508.html

Bloomberg: Goldman (Gov’t) Sachs to Pay Just 1% Tax: “Goldman Sachs Group Inc., which got $10 billion and debt guarantees from the U.S. government in October, expects to pay $14 million in taxes worldwide for 2008 compared with $6 billion in 2007. The company’s effective income tax rate dropped to 1 percent from 34.1 percent, New York-based Goldman Sachs said today in a statement. The firm reported a $2.3 billion profit for the year after paying $10.9 billion in employee compensation and benefits. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601110&sid=a6bQVsZS2_18

Increasingly neoliberal economic policies are transforming the delivery ofpublic education. In the current era of marketplace reforms the idea ofthe public has been supplanted by a private ideology of risk management;whereby, under individualization, students as consumers are taughtresponsible choice strategies designed for competitive advantage in theso-called new economy.

Under Keynesian economics, which held sway in the U.S., Britain, Canada,and Australia from the 1930s to the Thatcher-Reagan era of the 1980s, thepublic sought to ameliorate inequities stemming from race, class andgender bias, but under neoliberalism the state has shifted to promoting ameritocratic myth of governing the self. As old collectivities and theirsupport structures such as working-class labor and unions have begun todisappear under advanced capitalism so too have their counterparts withinthe school system.

In this special issue we seek manuscripts that explore the devolution ofpublic education under neoliberalism. We are interested in scholarlypapers that trouble the notion of risk in an educational environment ofcompetitive capitalism, the nature of specialized curriculums that aredevoted to social advantage, the ways in which schools have outsourcedservices and privatized operations; and the assaults on teachers’ rightsthrough de-unionizing practices, the dismantling of seniority, and theerosion of benefits. We are interested in case studies of neoliberaldesigned school-based reforms as well as accounts of teaching aboutneoliberalism in the social foundations classroom.

08 October 2009

Today is the 8th Anniversary of the US assault on Afghanistan, a full invasion, war, in response to a crime.

In my section A section of the New York Times (CA) , there is no mention of that.

Since then, $12.9 trillion was given to the banks. The wars will cost around $3 trillion if they project into next year, as they will.

The government became a full blown corporate state, an executive committee and armed weapon of the rich. Schools merged with the effort, becoming full-blown missions for capitalism. Those educators who collaborated became, knowingly or not, its missionaries.

The American public, having agreed to shop during Bush's wars, can no longer shop. The US economy, 2/3 rooted in consumerism, cannot consume, nor produce, and the banks will not loan to the unemployed.Spectacles continue, more and faster. Baseball! Football! Porn!!

The demagogue, Obama and his friend, Arne Duncan, now throw the Bush agenda for education into hyperspeed: Regimented curricula promoting witless nationalism, anti working class high stakes exams, militarization, layoffs and cutbacks, some privatization, and, with perfect logic, merit pay.

The union leadership of every major union cooperated at every turn, played a significant role in electing Obama, in harmony with their Quisling roles of the past. They are the nearest and most vulnerable of workers' enemies. Harsh measures for them.

Professional organizations accepted the division of academic labor they represent; remained largely impotent. Historians talked to historians, wrote a few petitions, rarely crossed the hall to deal with the sociologists. Some took up petitions, begging.

The education agenda is a war agenda. The core issue of our time is the reality of the promise of endless war and booming inequality met by the potential of mass, activist, class conscious resistance, connecting reason to real power.

02 October 2009

Any leftist can relate to the following type of conversation with "sensible" liberal types: you are asked about a topic, such as school choice, and when you respond with a pretty defined view (you know, what is called in some circles an "informed opinion"), then you are beset with a series of clarification questions. It's as if the question asker can't accept that you are not for school choice, so they try to negotiate you into postmodern confusion. They typically also have to insert that they like to remain 'open minded,' which is a not-so-subtle way of saying that you should do some rethinking because "there are good ideas in anything."

With school choice, I'm often asked if I would be for it if charter schools removed their admissions criteria to support open enrollment. I respond that it's a moot point- choice proponents will NEVER remove the ability to regulate who gets to go to their schools- that's the way they can exclude kids and raise test scores! If you made admissions 100% open AND, at the same time, provided reliable, federal funding to make these schools absolutely accessible, again, moot points. School choice would collapse. At that rate, you might as well fully fund and support public education- oh the horror!

Same for NCLB. People will ask me, "would you be for NCLB if there wasn't the standardized testing?" Are you kidding? Moot point! NCLB IS standardized testing- it's the center of the entire concept of the law! Get rid of the testing, and there is no NCLB. It has to be fully opposed and scrapped...unless you support testing. But the "sensible liberals" don't like having to clarify their views- instead, they want you to not be so "closed minded." They want to continue to hide behind their false neutrality and a leftist response doesn't allow them to do so for once. It is also a rare occurence so when they do encounter it, they often aren't sure how to proceed and then their whining can ensue: "How can they be so unreeeeeealistic?!!!" and so forth.

Take health care. Would I be for allowing the private sector to remain a "partner" in the scheme if they were regulated for the pre-existing condition thing and escalating costs? Moot point! Those are the two things that make private health care profitable! They will never get rid of those things.

After a while, these kinds of conversations hit rhetorical dead ends. I half expect to hear next:

"Slavery- would you be for it if it didn't involve the forced extortion of someone's labor?"

"Death penalty- would you reconsider it if it didn't involve the state-sponsored cessation of someone's life?"

Something needs to be done about this postmodernism run amok. Maybe if postmodernists would consider that there are some ideas that have to be opposed in order to preserve the notion of human rights. Oh wait. Moot point.

28 September 2009

We at the Rouge Forum applaud, admire, and support your efforts to help form a unified movement with the people of California.

The Rouge Forum is a group of 4500 educators, students, and parents seeking a democratic society. We are concerned with questions like: How can we teach against racism, nationalism and sexism in an increasingly authoritarian and undemocratic society? How can we gain enough real power to keep our ideals AND teach? Whose interests do schools serve in a society that is ever more unequal? We want to learn about equality, democracy and social justice as we simultaneously struggle to bring those into practice. (http://www.rougeforum.org/, http://www.therougeforum.blogspot.com/, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rouge_Forum).

In the German Ideology, Marx submits, “The class which has the means of material production at its disposal has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it. The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal of the dominant material relationships, the dominant material relationships grasped as ideas.”

The connection and simultaneous control of this material and mental production comes into ever-sharper relief anytime we are confronted by our corporate media. The level of discourse is less than satisfying. And, frankly, frightening. Pick the issue: health care, immigration, worker's rights, war, education. While all of the issues are truly critical, the last is particularly problematic since control of schools is a final domino to fall in the imperial quest to completely (re)fashion our reality. Remove critical thinking, make children compete against each other for perceived scarce resources (standardized tests), use the results to reify hierarchies based on social constructions like race and gender and class status, make teachers compete against one another for perceived scarce resources (merit pay), boil dissent down to participation in (mostly) corrupt unions, excuse and/or cover-up the school to military and prison pipelines, monitor and make impotent our schools of education through if-it-wasn't-so-sinister-it-would-be-comical accrediting bodies like NCATE, and regulate truth. This has been the agenda. And, it has already buried itself deep into our educational psyche.

Your willingness to continue to confront this reality beyond the one day UC walkout on September 24 is an illustration of both a more deepened consciousness and the work we will all have to do to protect public education toward the creation of a more whole and healthy society.

24 September 2009

Okay, usually I am willing to go to the other side, as a way to get at the kind of thinking used on the right, but I've reached my limit. Granted, I understand that the whole "tea bagger" thing is an astro-turf project funded by the health care industrial complex, in particular Dick Armey, but the limits of logic have been so far exceeded that something has to be done. But where in the heck to start? We aren't dealing with rational thought, so hang on for the ride.Case in point- this article: http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2009/09/16/tea-party-protesters-protest-dc-metro-service/

Apparently republican Texas Rep. Kevin Brady is upset that the public transit system in D.C. wasn't ready for the influx (no, not one million but more like 70,000 if one doesn't count the faked Promise Keeper crowd photo from the 1990s) of protesters hitting the city to...protest government spending on public services. He went on to complain that seniors (who likely receive Medicare) attending the protest were forced to take cabs since there was no room for them on the trains. Now I'm confused. Isn't privatization and the "toll" system of paying for services the major policy dream of republicans and the Ayn Rand crowd? Why are they unhappy? This is their social vision come to pass. If I were a p.r. person for the libertarian party, I would whip up some t-shirts with the slogan "Walk Proudly- Renounce Socialism on Wheels."

Speaking of irony, a group of conservatives is concerned that only 25% of Oklahoma high schoolers correctly identified George Washington as the first U.S. president (http://www.news9.com/global/story.asp?s=11141949). I'm not a fan of these sudden polls that throw out rapid fire questions to then show dismal results as proof that schools are teaching frivolous things. It's so Reader's Digest. But here we have a situation where conservatives are concerned about ignorance, yet these are the same folks who think the earth is roughly 4,000-6,000 years old! I could also be jumping to conclusions. Maybe part of the 75% named Jesus as the first U.S. president (since he is top choice as favorite philosopher). Then the conservatives shouldn't worry so much.

What is next, a debate about whether the sun revolves around the earth and vice versa? One thing I have learned is to never, I repeat never, make a statement about how things are bad, but thank goodness no one has (fill in the blank) yet. Yes, there is an anti-Copernican website out there, so my worst fears have been realized: http://www.fixedearth.com/ It's just good to know that there are people on this planet taking Glenn Beck's advice and "question boldly" (except the official story of 9/11), since that is evidence of our "freedom." Of course Beck forgot the rest of Jefferson's quote, which is to question boldly the existence of God. But that's just being picky.

All I can say is that the postmodernists must be happy by now to see their vision, like the tea-baggers, come to pass.

18 September 2009

We at the Rouge Forum applaud, admire, and support your efforts to respond to tuition hikes, enrollment cuts, layoffs, furloughs, and increased class sizes, which are indeed, complicit with the privatization of public education.

The Rouge Forum is a group of 4500 educators, students, and parents seeking a democratic society. We are concerned with questions like: How can we teach against racism, nationalism and sexism in an increasingly authoritarian and undemocratic society? How can we gain enough real power to keep our ideals AND teach? Whose interests do schools serve in a society that is ever more unequal? We want to learn about equality, democracy and social justice as we simultaneously struggle to bring those into practice. (http://www.rougeforum.org/, http://www.therougeforum.blogspot.com/, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rouge_Forum).

In the German Ideology, Marx submits, “The class which has the means of material production at its disposal has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it. The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal of the dominant material relationships, the dominant material relationships grasped as ideas.”

The connection and simultaneous control of this material and mental production comes into ever-sharper relief anytime we are confronted by our corporate media. The level of discourse is less than satisfying. And, frankly, frightening. Pick the issue: health care, immigration, worker's rights, war, education. While all of the issues are truly critical, the last is particularly problematic since control of schools is a final domino to fall in the imperial quest to completely (re)fashion our reality. Remove critical thinking, make children compete against each other for perceived scarce resources (standardized tests), use the results to reify hierarchies based on social constructions like race and gender and class status, make teachers compete against one another for perceived scarce resources (merit pay), boil dissent down to participation in (mostly) corrupt unions, excuse and/or cover-up the school to military and prison pipelines, monitor and make impotent our schools of education through if-it-wasn't-so-sinister-it-would-be-comical accrediting bodies like NCATE, and regulate truth. This has been the agenda. And, it has already buried itself deep into our educational psyche.

Your willingness to confront this reality on September 24 is an illustration of the work we will all have to do to protect public education toward the creation of a more whole and healthy society. Where Rouge Forum members are affiliated with the UC system, we have encouraged them to join you. Where Rouge Forum members are unaffiliated with the UC system, we have encouraged them to take part in campus wide discussions relative to the status of higher education, academic freedom, and the importance of public education.

We stand in solidarity with you and offer the graphic pasted above, created by Rouge Forum member, Bryan Reinholdt, an elementary performing arts teacher in Louisville, Ky.

11 September 2009

Critical Education is an international peer-reviewed journal, which seeks manuscripts that critically examine contemporary education contexts and practices. Critical Education is interested in theoretical and empirical research as well as articles that advance educational practices that challenge the existing state of affairs in society, schools, and informal education.

Critical Education is an open access journal, launching in early 2010. The journal home is criticaleducation.org

Critical Education is hosted by the Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy at the University of British Columbia and edited by Sandra Mathison (UBC), E. Wayne Ross (UBC) and Adam Renner (Bellarmine University) along with collective of 30 scholars in education that includes:

Faith Ann Agostinone, Aurora UniversityWayne Au, California State University, FullertonMarc Bousquet, Santa Clara UniversityJoe Cronin, Antioch UniversityAntonia Darder, University of Illinois, Urbana-ChampaignGeorge Dei, OISE/University of TorontoStephen C. Fleury, Le Moyne CollegeKent den Heyer, University of AlbertaNirmala Erevelles, University of AlabamaMichelle Fine, City University of New YorkGustavo Fischman, Arizona State UniversityMelissa Freeman, University of GeorgiaDavid Gabbard, East Carolina UniversityRich Gibson, San Diego State UniversityDave Hill, University of NorthamptonNathalia E. Jaramillo, Purdue UniversitySaville Kushner, University of West EnglandZeus Leonardo, University of California, BerkeleyPauline Lipman, University of Illinois, ChicagoLisa Loutzenheiser, University of British ColumbiaMarvin Lynn, University of Illinois, ChicagoSheila Macrine, Montclair State UniversityPerry M. Marker, Sonoma State UniversityRebecca Martusewicz, Eastern Michigan UniversityPeter McLaren, University of California, Los AngelesStephen Petrina, University of British ColumbiaStuart R. Poyntz, Simon Fraser UniversityPatrick Shannon, Penn State UniversityKevin D. Vinson, University of the West IndiesJohn F. Welsh, Louisville, KY

09 September 2009

This week's update got a little long but there are bullet headlinesand notes on current job actions (Oakland U strike, UC strike, etc) early in this link, followed by a continuation of the discussion ofEducation vs Capital, why that is and what to do.Our friend Susan H got arrested in Seattle (not guilty as charged) for protesting the Torture Memos that came out of John Yoo and theBush administration, the ones that Obama would like to sweep away.

01 September 2009

The following is an RF Broadside, created by Rich Gibson. I have inserted a few [bracketed] additions to extend an already-compelling analysis. We encourage your feedback and additions.

It is probably not all that helpful to announce that we told you so, but....Yes, we told many people so.

The core issue of our time is the rapid rise of color-coded inequality and the emergence of world war met by the potential of a mass, class-conscious resistance.

These are not "public" schools we see. They are capitalist schools in a society where capitalism trumped whatever vestiges of democracy existed a decade ago. They are segregated schools [as the last domino was felled by the Supreme Court in July, 2007]. That's not merely the result of bad people doing bad things, exploiting others (though they surely are bad people) but also the consequence of a social system dependant on exploitation---meaning inequality.

The education agenda is a war agenda. It is a capitalism in crisis agenda, a Regimented National Curriculum agenda, mostly to promote nationalism.

Such a curriculum necessarily sets up anti-working class and racist high-stakes tests. Both teacher unions, the NEA and AFT, helped design both the national curriculum and the high-stakes exams. They are in no position to stop the next step. The professional organization, from NCTE to AHA to NCSS and all in between, proved more than impotent; they too collaborated. Those tests necessarily and logically lead to merit pay which already exists in the deep divide in, say, Detroit and suburb pay and benefits.

Militarization of schooling is part of the war agenda. National service=war agenda.

To some degree, privatization and charters are part of the war agenda. Privatization serves some sectors of elites, and others not. Why fully abandon a huge, tax supported, funnel for war, ignorance, and inequality; missions for capitalism and their unwitting, ever so nice, missionaries?Restoring hope is part of the agenda, but it is false hope. The future is war, inequality, unemployment, horrible options for youth and it will not change without a mass social movement for equality. War means work; why many people enlist and proof that our choice is community or barbarism.

All of these interconnected attacks on life and reason have already happened, all over the western world.

Merely opposing any one of these factors, like merit pay, but not the rest just reinforces the entire project. As we see, NEA now dishonestly speaks out about merit pay, but NEA backed the regimented curricula and high stakes exams, sharply attacked people like Susan Ohanian who spoke against them, and dumped the students who suffered most from them.

Too late for NEA which is merely trying to keep the rubes sending dues money, but there is now nothing much NEA can do. Only direct action strikes, boycotts, etc., can halt the drive to the factors described above.

NEA has done nothing at all to prepare for that, and is not likely to do so. The union leaders are completely corrupt and their structures don't unite people. They divide people: city from suburb, students from teachers, teachers from other public workers and private employees---as easily seen in the California Teachers Association's effort to pass off a tax on poor and working people just months ago, a project that cost dues-payers millions of dollars and failed miserably, convincing the public, again, that educators want to pick their pockets.

What would be helpful is to wonder about the analytical and critical mistake that led to all that support for Obama, a demagogue.

Several things led to the hysteria around Obama.1. A misunderstanding of capitalist democracy which is now sheer capitalism and little democracy. There was no significant difference between the Bush/Obama/McCain or even Clinton policies. Obama has betrayed, if we take his consistency as a betrayal, his liberal supporters who, for what have to be psychological reasons, still support his personification of the reign of capital which has, among other things, failed in every important arena of human life.2. A misunderstanding of the gravity of the current situation vis-a-vis the war of empires. The US is in rapid decline in relationship to Russia, China and even Europe and Japan---economically and militarily-- and the US has lost any ability to promote itself as a moral nation, internally and externally. This puts extraordinary pressure on elites who need soldiers, Boeing workers, prison guards, and teachers too.3. A misreading of the real internal crisis inside the US; the rapid rise of segregation and inequality--which has not, yet, led to civil rebellions. But everything is in place to lay the ground for those uprisings, except a left which can make sense of why things are as they are, and what to do. Lost wars. Collapsed economies. Immoral leaders caught with dozens of hands in a thousand cookie jars, war without reason pulling 1.5 million people into direct action---and the wreckage of their lives. All that, and more, should mean massive resistance. But that has not happened? Why not? No draft. No left. Spectacles. Divide and Rule. Carrot and stick. The education system. The same ways tyrants always ruled.4. The continuing appeal of racism and nationalism. [One need only look at the continuation of residential segregation in most of America’s major cities; the segregation of children of color, generally, into lower-tracked curricula; the percentage of Black and Brown men in prison, the Black unemployment rate vis-à-vis their fellow white workers; and the assault on immigrants from the Global South]5. Acceptance of the division of labor inside academia which means, for example, historians talk to historians and write books while literacy people talk to literacy people and write books, and few academics seriously organize anything at all, as the state of the campuses illustrate now. (And, there is an open willingness of the overwhelming majority of faculty to abandon their academic freedom in favor of standards). [As well, the university commons continue to be sold off to corporate interests, students become customers, and faculty become tradable entities focused more on chasing after grants than focusing on their craft.] This means historians, as in AHA, don't pay much attention to teaching while too many education personnel don't know much history.6. A general public so mindless about history and social processes (class war) that it can rightly be called hysterical, potentially dangerous. Steeped in spectacles and consumerism for more than a decade, so vacant about their location in the world that Chalmers Johnson says they cannot connect cause and effect (as with the endless wars, but in regard to NCLB’s schooling as well). Fickle to the core, they howled for Bush, abandoned him when things went wrong, then another bunch howled for Obama, and now we see a new crowd howling about health care--all leaping for thousands of forms of selfishness that keeps the war of all on all that is the system of capital alive and well.

Not recognizing the historical moment, rejecting the real whole of the situation, capitalism in decay everywhere, shatters analytical and strategic capability, meaning many people cannot tell left from right, muddle along looking for someone else to save us when no one but the collective Us is going to save us.

Those who are not angry and seething a bit these days may not be witnessing the ravages of war, hunger, unemployment, and unreason itself. The education agenda is a war agenda. The war agenda requires an education agenda: 49 million kids in school; many draft eligible.

Yup. We told them so. Big deal. Those who have not made a big mistake in life can be absolved. We are all lambs among wolves. But we do not have to be lambs among wolves if we recognize, and act on, the role of class consciousness.

Deadline For Nominations to the Rouge Forum Steering Committee is September 1.

We recognize with sadness: the doors at Room 101, an incisive radio program on KZUM hosted by Michael Baker, are closed. Mr Baker's long run on the radio included interviews with key radical and progressive voices in education from Noam Chomsky to Wayne Ross and liberals as well. Congratulations to Michael Baker on a great run. Two, three, many Room 101s!

There are, at the beginning of the school year, 4,516 on our email list. Wish it was more? Send it along. Invite a friend.

Yes, We Told Them So: The DemoagogueIt is probably not all that helpful to announce that we told you so, but....Yup, we told many people so.

The core issue of our time is the rapid rise of color-coded inequality and the emergence of world war met by the potential of a mass, class-conscious resistance. These are not "public" schools we see. They are capitalist schools in a society where capitalism trumped whatever vestiges of democracy existed a decade ago. They are segregated schools. That's not merely the result of bad people doing bad things, exploiting others (though they surely are bad people) but also the consequence of a social system dependant on exploitation---meaning inequality.

The education agenda is a war agenda. It is a capitalism in crisis agenda, a Regimented National Curriculum agenda, mostly to promote nationalism.

Such a curriculum necessarily sets up anti-working class and racist high-stakes tests. Both teacher unions, the NEA and AFT, helped design both the national curriculum and the high-takes exams. They are in no position to stop the next step. The professional organization, from NCTE to AHA to NCSS and all in between, proved more than impotent, they too collaborated. Those tests necessarily and logically lead to merit pay which already exists in the deep divide in, say, Detroit and suburb pay and benefits.

Militarization of schooling is part of the war agenda.

To some degree, privatization and charters are part of the war agenda. Privatization serves some sectors of elites, and others not. Why fully abandon a huge, tax supported, funnel for war, ignorance, and inequality; missions for capitalism and their unwitting, ever so nice, missionaries.

Restoring hope is part of the agenda, but it is false hope. The future is war, inequality, unemployment, horrible options for youth and it will not change without a mass social movement for equality.

All of these interconnected attacks on life and reason have already happened, all over the western world.

Merely opposing any one of these factors, like merit pay, but not the rest just reinforces the entire project. As we see, NEA now dishonestly speaks out about merit pay, but NEA backed the regimented curricula and high stakes exams, sharply attacked people like Susan Ohanian who spoke against them, and dumped the students who suffered most from them.

Too late for NEA which is merely trying to keep the rubes sending dues money, but there is now nothing much NEA can do. Only direct action strikes, boycotts, etc., can halt the drive to the factors described above.

NEA has done nothing at all to prepare for that, and is not likely to do so. The union leaders are completely corrupt and their structures don't unite people. They divide people: city from suburb, students from teachers, teachers from other public workers and private employees---as easily seen in the California Teachers Association's effort to pass off a tax on poor and working people just months ago, a project that cost dues-payers millions of dollars and failed miserably, convincing the public, again, that educators want to pick their pockets.

What would be helpful is to wonder about the analytical and critical mistake that led to all that support for Obama, a demagogue.Several things led to that.

1. A misunderstanding of capitalist democracy which is now sheer capitalism and little democracy. There was no significant difference between the Bush/Obama/McCain or even Clinton policies. Obama has betrayed, if we take his consistency as a betrayal, nearly all of his liberal supporters who, for what have to be psychological reasons, still support his personification of the reign of capital which has, among other things, failed in every important arena of human life.

2. A misunderstanding of the gravity of the current situation vis a vis the war of empires. The US is in rapid decline in relationship to Russia China and even Europe and Japan---economically and militarily, and the US has lost any ability to promote itself as a moral nation, internally and externally. This puts extraordinary pressure on elites who need soldiers, Boeing workers, prison guards, and teachers too.

3. A misreading of the real internal crisis inside the US; the rapid rise of segregation and inequality--which has not, yet, led to civil rebellions. But everything is in place to lay the ground for those uprisings, except a left which can make sense of why things are as they are, and what to do. Lost wars. Collapsed economies. Immoral leaders caught with dozens of hands in a thousand cookie jars, war without reason pulling 1.5 million people into direct action---and the wreckage of their lives. All that should, and more, should mean massive resistance. But that has not happened? Why not? No draft. No left. Spectacles. Divide and Rule. Carrot and stick. The education system. The same ways tyrants always ruled.

4. The continuing appeal of racism and nationalism.

5. Acceptance of the division of labor inside academia which means, for example, historians talk to historians and write books while literacy people talk to literacy people and write books, and few academics seriously organize anything at all, as the state of the campuses (and open willingness of the overwhelming majority of faculty to abandon their academic freedom in favor of standards) now. This also means historians, as in AHA, don't pay much attention to teaching while too many education personnel don't know much history.

6. A general public so mindless about history and social processes that it can rightly be called hysterical, potentially dangerous. Steeped in spectacles and consumerism for more than a decade, so vacant about their location in the world that Chalmers Johnson says they cannot connect cause and effect (as with the endless wars, but in regard to schooling as well). Fickle to the core, they howled for Bush, abandoned him when things went wrong, then another bunch howled for Obama, and now we see a new crowd howling about health care--all leaping for thousands of forms of selfishness that keeps the the war of all on all that is the system of capital alive and well.

Not recognizing the historical moment, rejecting the real whole of the situation, capitalism in decay everywhere, shatters analytical and strategic capability, meaning many people cannot tell left from right, muddle along looking for someone else to save us when no one but the collective Us is going to save us.

This, written months before the election and originally published in Workplace, online, is now floating around the net. http://la.indymedia.org/news/2009/08/229885.php Those who are not angry and screeding a bit these days may not be witnessing the ravages of war, hunger, unemployment, and unreason itself.

Yup. We told them so. Big deal. Those who have not made a big mistake in life can be absolved. We are all lambs among wolves. But we do not have to be lambs among wolves if we recognize, and act on, the role of class consciousness.good luck to us, every one. Congratulations to Sharon, Amber and the gang at a wonderful new school.

21 August 2009

Rouge Forum News, Issue 15:Call for papersThe Rouge Forum News is an outlet for working papers, critical analysis, and grassroots news. Issue 15 will be dedicated to our persistence in providing links between runaway capital, the rabid and rapid standardization of curriculum, the general breakdown of community, the co-optation of our unions, the militarization of our youth, and the creep of irrationalism in our schools.

We are interested in work from academics, other professionals who work in social service/change sectors, parents, teachers, and students: teachers at all levels, students in ANY grade, parents of children of any age.

We NEED Art! Songs! Poems! Editorial cartoons! Links to online videos or other material!We are looking for narratives, as well as research, and the interplay between research and practice which focuses on the economy, curriculum, unions, etc. If you have a story to tell, some research to share, a book to review, we'd love to see it. We would especially be interested in curriculum that you are developing and/or using in your classrooms which uses a class analysis as its primary focus.

We publish material from k-12 students, parents, teachers, academics, and community people struggling for equality and democracy in schools/society --- writing (intended to inform/educate, or stories from your classroom, etc.), art, cartoons, photos, poetry.

*Both the liberal NY Times and the slightly less liberal LA Times have editorialized repeatedly for merit pay. The demagoguge, Obama, who has betrayed every promise made to his sometimes hysterical believers, set up this equation: Education Stimulus=Merit Pay=More Reliance on Anti-working class high-stakes exams=deeper segregation=gutting educator pay=uneducated kids=war+bad jobs. http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lopez9-2009aug09,0,6840948.column

On the Coming Soon--the End of Detroit Front:*Michigan's Democratic Governor appointed Bob Bobb a Broad Foundation employee active earlier in Oakland and D.C. to run the finances of the Detroit Public Schools, awash for decades in corruption and incompetence. Bobb interprets his mandate as, "everything." He's fighting with the inept but elected School Board over who holds power while the district collapses around all of them. Bobb is surrounded by small crooks at every level, true, but the bigger crook is Bobb, whose job is to restore some sense of order, get the books in line, and to fashion a black school system that will produce children fit and willing to fight in imperialist wars or accept bad jobs, no jobs, or jail. Still, Bobb has some ethical problems of his own. He awarded his former employer a near $1 million no-bid contract.More on Detroit's collapse soon. http://www.freep.com/article/20090811/NEWS01/90811035/Officials-knew-Bobb-would-hire-old-firm

28 July 2009

Health and work delayed the update of the Rouge Forum No Blood For Oil web page at www.rougeforum.org. There you will find those good-for-the-rest-your-life nifty No Blood For Oil posters on sale and more. Plus, you will get a chance to see The Great Parade at the End of the Rouge Forum Conference in Ypsilanti this year: http://richgibson.com/rouge_forum/2009/Parade.mov

On the Education for Irrationalism Front: In a death by a thousand cuts, some one or some place may have to be first. It could be Detroit where between 1/3 and 1/4 of the teaching staff was notified that they had three days to find a new job in the school system as they were "reconstituted" by test scores. This announcement came from Bob Bobb, appointed Czar of the school system by the Democratic governor. What did the Detroit Federation of Teachers do? Less than nothing. They called a building rep meeting (not a mass meeting, too risky) for tomorrow, Tuesday, and then threatened a small group of teachers who tried to take up a petition opposing the firings, saying the petition had nothing to do with the DFT. This may be the end of what was once the finest school system in the western world. The end of the schools would mean, literally, the end of Detroit. DPS Vacates 2600 Jobs, Schools Reconstituted: http://www.detnews.com/article/20090722/SCHOOLS/907220369/DPS-vacates-2-600-jobs-at-41-schools

The many crises grow around us apace. Unemployment and foreclosures mean an eradicated tax base, meaning more demands for cuts on education and services, increased taxation of those who have a little, more pr to crush hope in the sense that nothing can be done, more police activity to raise funds and tamp down resistance, and more spectacles. On the war front, more war---for oil, regional control, that is, profits, using the children of the poor to fight the children of the poor on behalf of the rich in their homelands. What stops the madness? Understanding that the core issue of our time is the relationship of rising color-coded inequality to the potential of mass class-conscious resistance. That has been the project of the Rouge Forum, connection reason to power, for more than a decade.